


kind of opposites that do not attract

by newrromantics



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 08:24:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2303051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newrromantics/pseuds/newrromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-Series AU. While Serena is away at boarding school, Dan & Blair become bitter academic rivals / friends / the kind of opposites who do not attract.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kind of opposites that do not attract

**Author's Note:**

> based off of: http://bwaldorfs.tumblr.com/post/98202442956

Serena is gone. 

 

 

 

"Let's get this out of the way: I don't like you." Blair states, point black. Her lips are pursed, painted in this brilliant shade of red. Her back is stiff, and every step and move she takes is pre-calculated in her head. Elegant and regal, an eyebrow raised as she doesn't break eye contact with him, even as she shuffles through their notes. 

"Good, because I don't like you, either." Dan bites back, his tone is more teasing than harsh. He doesn't like her. She's Blair Waldorf, she mocks him without even knowing him, spreads rumours and lies and doesn't even bother to learn his name. Bosses his little sister around; she rules Constance Billard and the Upper East Side and the whole of New York City and Dan Humphrey does  _not_ like her.

Blair huffs, lips pursed. She turns on her heel, spins in the other direction, papers tucked in her folder neatly. Her hair flies behind her, a mess of curls that look anything but messy, they look perfect and calculated, like spinning in the wind is their exact purpose. Dan doesn't mean to stare, but just because he doesn't like her doesn't mean she isn't beautiful — 

 

 

 

_we can be crazy like that_

 

 

Blair writes down notes, she emails them to Dan at 3:24 in the morning every Friday. 

He writes emails back to her,  _here are my notes_ ,  _that isn't right_ ,  _here's what i think_ , things along those lines. 

Blair deletes them all without reading them. 

 

 

"Have you finished it?" Dan asks, his bag swung over his shoulder. He's ten minutes late. Blair looks frustrated, eyes angry, posture stiff.

"Of course, I have." She angrily bites out, shoving a bunch of papers stapled together towards him. Dan looks at it, his fingers flicking through the pages, eyes skim reading over it. He removes his own paper from his bag, three pages shorter than Blair's. She laughs as he slides it towards her.

"Mines better, it's the one we're using. I'm not risking — " Blair starts, shaking her head as she grabs Dan's essay. 

"And  _I'm_ not risking my scholarship over this. So read it, and I'll read yours and then we'll decide on the best one." Dan angrily retorts, snatching Blair's essay and tucking it into his bag before storming off. 

 

 

 

Blair, surprisingly, reads Dan's essay. 

 

 

 

 _it's good,_ she emails him. She doesn't have his number and doesn't plan on having it, ever. 

 _so is yours,_ he emails back. She reads that one. 

 

 

 

Dan corners her at school, she's adjusting the headband in her hair as she exists the toilets. He wasn't looking for her but once he sees her, he chases her down. She stops for him just outside the school. Hand on her hip, head cocked to the side. 

"What do you want, Humphrey?" She bites out, her tone more relaxed than usual. It takes him by surprise.  _She looks good today,_ he thinks suddenly, licking his lips. He doesn't like Blair Waldorf — not like  _that_ , not even in the sense of a friend, (not that she would ever consider him a friend), but — 

"Um, I," Dan mumbles, suddenly at a loss for words. Blair's patience is running out. He's noticed that it runs out a lot. 

"Look, I don't have the time. So, if you have something to say, spit it out." Blair sounds  _tired_ , he notes. She's clicking her heel against the ground, her leg jittering. Arms have now come up to her chest, folded over. 

"I, no." He moves out of her way within a second, watching as she walks over towards the town car pulled up in front of the school.

 

 

 

They submit Blair's essay, (because she's the best of the best and there's no way she'll ever not have her work submitted). 

 

 

 

Blair and Dan don't talk for a month after their assignment ends. Not until their teacher announces a class competition.

"And our three biggest competitors for it are: Nelly Yuki, Dan Humphrey and Blair Waldorf!" 

 

 

 

Nelly Yuki is easy to deal with, she's dumber than she seems. 

Accept her into the group, cause emotional turmoil in her life, give her the wrong topic — she's out of the game. 

 

 

Dan Humphrey is harder to deal with. 

Blair can't use his stupid crush on Serena to her advantage, ( _how do you know?_ she imagines him asking, she's pictures herself with a martini in her hand as she laughs.  _anybody with two eyes can see that you're in love with her, your staring isn't exactly subtle_ ). 

But Serena isn't here and it doesn't look like he's in love with anybody else. 

 

 

Blair tries her best to trick him, she slips the wrong notes into his locker and tells Nate to befriend him to mess with his mind. 

But none of it works. Sighing, she flops down onto her bed. Exhausted, she's just exhausted. With scheming, with school, with the ever distant Nate, with her parents fighting, with her dad leaving, with Serena gone — 

she has to win. 

 

 

 

Blair wins, Dan comes second and Nelly comes third. 

 

 

 

Surprisingly, Dan stops by her penthouse after school. He brings her a small cupcake with red icing and a card that says congratulations.

Frowning, she takes the gifts. Dan laughs as she curiously opens up the card, she sends him a death glare to shut him up. Her eyes rake over the words, feeling victory course through her veins: 

_Blair, it looks like you won. Congratulations, whether it was by sabotage or sheer talent, we'll never know._

"Sheer talent, alone." Blair proudly tells him, grinning as she places the card on the table next to where they're standing. She thrusts her hand out towards him, passing him back the cupcake. 

Dan plucks it out of her hand, waving it around in the air, glaring she tells him to be careful,  _don't get crumbs everywhere_. 

"It's for you — eat it." Blair tells him, crossing her arms over her chest as she watches him. Her foot tapping impatiently against the floor. 

"I brought it for  _you_ ," Dan retorts, amused. 

"Well, the loser should get something," Blair retorts back, equally as amused. Dan shrugs his shoulders, taking a bite of it before scrunching up his face. 

"That's  _really_ gross," Blair lets out a small laugh, her face lighting up at Dan's disgust; he briefly thinks it's the first time he's seen her smile, at least like  _that_ , all wide and glowing. "You didn't do something to it, did you?" He asks her. Blair raises an eyebrow. 

"How would I have _time_ to do something to it?" Blair spits out, but the smile remains on her face. Dan shrugs his shoulders, eyes looking around the place. He'd been here once, briefly. A party, somehow he had mistakenly gotten an invitation. 

"You've got a nice place," Dan teases. Of course it's nice, she's from the Upper East Side, a spoiled rich princess penthouse brat. He doesn't know what he's doing here, anymore. Why on earth did he buy her a cupcake and a card? He must be out of his mind. They weren't friends, they worked together briefly once, and she had just tried to mess with him so he'd lose the competition. Blair clears her throat, gesturing towards the elevator. 

"You should go, I'm kind of busy." Blair says, her posture straightens out, her held becomes held high once again. Reverting back into the Queen B behaviour.

 

 

 

Nate tells her softly that he thinks they might be over. 

Blair lets out a small whimper, feeling the life drain out of her.

He holds her hand, gripping it tightly; she allows him, just this once.

"I love you," Nate tells her, earnest and real and loving. Blair nods her head, she knew this was coming, hasn't she known for a while, now? Nate's been distant for a while, things have been strained — 

"I love you, too." Blair tells him quietly, eyes looking at the ground. She's Blair Waldorf, she won't cry over him, won't let him see her break; but this is  _Nate._

For a while they just sit in silence, before Blair comes to her senses and orders him out. 

 

 

_I miss you, Serena._

_Where are you?_

Blair hates her. 

 

 

Sighing in content, Blair watches Audrey on screen in Rome, feeling at peace. 

Other Audrey loving strangers are all around her, cloaked in darkness as they all enjoy the same movie, and she can lose herself in it, in the movie and forget about what's waiting for her when she returns home.

(Nothing, nothing is waiting for her). 

Except, she runs into Dan Humphrey as she exits the movie and that's kind of where the trouble starts. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is short because i kind of needed to have it posted straight away, and i'm assuming there will be five more parts to this, which will all (hopefully) be longer than this one.


End file.
